Tribute to pianist Arthur Rubinstein

The Rubinstein Piano Festival is in its penultimate day in the central Polish city of Łódź with a recital by Russian-born Israeli pianist Elena Bashkirova.

Eva Rubinstein, daughter of the famous pianist.

Photo: PAP/Grzegorz Michałowski

The six-day event, which ends on Saturday, has featured pianists including Poland’s Szymon Nehring, First Prize winner at the 2017 Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, and Romania’s Daniel Ciobanu, who placed second in that same competition.

The festival includes an exhibition of photographs taken in the 1980s by Rubinstein’s daughter, Eva Rubinstein, to document Łódź’s cultural scene.

Eva Rubinstein, who is the special guest of the event, has donated several of his father’s manuscripts to one of the city’s museums. 

Arthur Rubinstein was born in Łódź in 1887. He moved abroad early in his life, but visited Poland and his hometown several times after World War II. He made his first visit in 1958. His last was in 1979, three years before his death.

Pianist Arthur Rubinstein in concert in 1962. Photo: Rossem, Wim van / Anefo [CC BY-SA 3.0 nl (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

(mk/gs)